Double Trouble

Adam

en's

ittle

d his

! But,

ave

e'd hav

ere be

e Rehypo

u don't feel a dreamy sense of familiarity here in these rooms-the feeling that the long-lost heir

pt surprise at the elegance about me, and a sneaking fear that Brassfie

nt on the judge, "in the streets or

thi

ce, like long-forgotten melodies, you understand-like what the sai

one of the sounds made by a great master playing his heart out in the lowest notes of the flute; b

up and down the

's enough to make a

Amidon. "What ca

levin for, if anybody converted it. They'd ask you on cross-examination if it was yours, and you'd have to say you didn't know! And there's a worl

," said Florian. "I shall

ust bring Brassfield up, so that we can

d Amidon. "I must call o

ct--" bega

rns my honor as a gentleman. While it remains in its present sta

judge. "Well, just wa

office

Blodgett. "Bookkeeper, assistant bookkeeper and stenographer. Trie

you call him?-to show you all through the books and things-going to buy or take a partnership, or somethin

you think we'd better have Brassfield on the witness-stand for a while this

rian. "No more of that

his mustache in

d we bring madame and the professor do

etting along without it if I can. As little of her-

lorian, all right. Maybe it's best, maybe it's best. Abnormal condition, as the profe

keep straight. I've never had much tendency to go wrong, you kno

ing. I'll take you out and show you the house. By George! It must seem extraordinarily odd to walk about among things you are s

n of memory, of all sense of familiarity, of all its habits, stripped of all the protection of habitude. For the Inferno, indeed!-Now this must be the house, with the white columns running up to the top of the second story; crossin

pproached the door. Amidon was frightened. He had expected either Elizabeth herself, or a maid to take his card,

"Heard you'd got back. Sorry I couldn't meet

said Amidon, "to

d the bones of the early Christians rattle when he bellered out the lecture. 'Here, among the eternal shades of the deep caves of death, walked once the great exemplars of our Ancient Order!' Why, it would raise the hair on a bronze statue. And when, in the second, they condemned him to the Tarpeian Rock, and swung him off into space in

secret order in his life, "and do you thin

iner; "but nobody's about, y

the way," said Florian, "where does

s after the wedding. You'll be back by that time, thirstier than ever. By the way, that reminds me: the gang's going to give you a blow-out at the club. Kind of an Auld lang sy

ing who and what Edgington would turn out to be

But I mustn't keep you. Bessie told me that the plans for your house have come. She's got 'em over there, now. I say, old man, I envy you your evening.

midon. "How am I ever t

ed the attention of the little man, and

matter, do you, that will-- By George! And she's a sister of one of the most

d Amidon,

You d

orian. "I've

e," added his unknown brother, in a stage-whisper, "if there has been anything between you and anything comes up, you know, Jim Alvord, for one, knowing and understanding your temptations-for the strawberry blondes are the very devil-will stand by you until the frost gath

e could think of only under the coarse appellation of the strawberry blonde. Was there a real crime here to take the place of the imagined putting away of Brassfield? Brassfield! The very name sickened him. "Strawberry blondes, indeed!" thought Florian; and "Brassfield, the perjured villain!" Certain names used by the little man in the wrong house came to him as having been mentioned in the notes of the professor and the judge. Alvord, the slangy little chap who took so familiar an attitude toward him-this was the judge's "ministerial" friend! Yet, had there not been mention of "ritualistic

not the thought of the fortune of which Judge Blodgett had spoken that altered his resolution, but that of the letter which greeted his return to consciousness as Florian Amidon, and the image of the dark-eyed girl with the low voice

bosom, at the ring of the door-bell, ran lightly to the door and listened as the servant greeted Mr. Brassfield, and then hurried back to her seat by the grate, and became so absorbed in her book that she was obl